Louis Pasteur’s name is stamped on our milk and wine, but the real story behind the legend is far messier. This episode goes beyond the marble-statue version of the scientist who helped build germ theory, pasteurization, and modern vaccines.

We follow Pasteur from a mediocre student in Dole to his discovery of molecular chirality in tartaric acid crystals, his work on fermentation, and the swan-neck flask experiment that challenged spontaneous generation. We also examine the loss of three of his children to typhoid, his silkworm work, the anthrax trial whose secret method was revealed in his notebooks, and the ethically fraught rabies treatment of Joseph Meister.

• How separating left- and right-handed crystals launched Pasteur’s career
• Why a spoiling beetroot alcohol business led to pasteurization
• The swan-neck flask and the end of spontaneous generation
• What Gerald Geison found in Pasteur’s private notebooks about the 1881 anthrax trial
• The ethics of the 1885 rabies vaccine given to nine-year-old Joseph Meister